‘Earnhardt’ director says it’s a story of hero and human

Joshua Altman doesn’t like to get involved in projects on subjects about which he’s a fan.

Altman is a producer, writer, and award-winning director, with his latest project being the four-part Prime Video series on Dale Earnhardt Sr. The first episodes of ‘Earnhardt’ are available now, and the second two will drop May 29.

“I tend to look for things where I don’t know anything about (them) and there is something that hooks me,” Altman told RACER. “This really had that, and as I get hooked, I get to be a sponge and absorb all of it. In a lot of ways, I think that helps communicate it to the audience outside of the sport, and to get people who don’t watch NASCAR to watch this and connect and understand who Dale was.”

The series was compiled from archival NASCAR footage (of which they were provided 15 petabytes of material) and personal collection materials from the Earnhardt family. It is told through the interviews of the Earnhardt family, including Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s siblings and his children. Others included in the series include colleagues and friends.

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Earnhardt is a figure who has been covered in-depth for decades. Those past projects were viewed and researched by Altman, executive producer Dan Lindsey and others, who all felt that there was a different way to tell the story that hadn’t been told yet. Once the idea was fleshed out, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt Miller were approached.

“When we pitched it, we would compare or keep saying ‘The Godfather,’” Altman said. “The Godfather, in many ways, is seen as a mob story, but really, it’s a family story, and they just happen to be in the mob. This, for us, was a similar story. It’s a family story, and they just happen to be NASCAR drivers.”

The pair have entertained many pitches over the years, but this was the time and project they connected with and essentially gave approval and agreement to be included in. Earnhardt Jr. and Earnhardt Miller were the biggest pieces of the puzzle, according to Altman. It was through them that a clear picture of Earnhardt the man and father can be told. And the series does cover those complex topics in addition to his career and the race car driver many came to know.

“And also, their (Dale and Kelley) trajectories as independent people, as humans, growing up underneath this incredible force of nature,” Altman said. “They were both so trusting. We could not have asked for better partners. They are just the kindest, most open, willing-to-go-there people that we could have asked for. Nothing was off limits, and I think that helped us dive in deep and get to a story that in a lot of ways might have been told but not told this way.”

However, one individual not featured, except in archival footage and interviews, is Teresa Earnhardt. The widow of Earnhardt has not been a public figure since his death in February 2001, and did not participate in the series. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though, as Altman and the rest of the team wanted her and tried to make it happen.

“We tried many, many times to reach out, and we were in contact with her lawyer,” Altman said. “There was no like declining to be involved; nothing like that. It didn’t get to that place. IT just dragged on for a while, and people made it clear to us that it probably wasn’t going to happen. We did our best to include her voice from the archives. She was such an important component of this and of Dale and his life, and of building this business. So, we wanted her to be present as much as possible.”

"Earnhardt" is produced by Imagine Documentaries, NASCAR Studios and Everyone Else, in association with Dirty Mo Media. The series is directed by Altman and executive produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Sara Bernstein, Christopher St. John and Justin Wilkes of Imagine Documentaries; TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay of Everyone Else; and Tim Clark and John Dahl of NASCAR Studios.

There are many themes Altman hopes viewers connect with or understand, such as family, masculinity, sacrifice and the suppression of emotions. But he mostly hopes they will connect on a human level with someone who was considered a hero because at the heart of the Earnhardt story, or anything else in life, is the humanity that comes with it, and seeing yourself in the subject.

“We constantly kept talking about Dale as someone we thought needed to be seen … as someone on par with Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Babe Ruth, and even someone like Elvis,” Altman said. “He is this American icon. The thing that I learned over the course of this that I didn’t quite understand to the level that made him this icon is that he didn’t just transform the sport. He wasn’t just an incredible driver; he also took control of the business, his name, image, and likeness, and not just for himself but also for other drivers by taking them in and saying, ‘Hey, wait, there’s a whole other business to this.’

“He did all that with a ninth-grade education. That is pretty profound. I didn’t really know the level of that going into this project, and I think that is something that needs to be celebrated and realized how special he was.”